


heavy metal threat assessment

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Aristotle references, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Crangst which at this point sounds like a Heinz mashup sauce, Gen, Gender Roles, I have long wanted Phasma and Kylo to be bros, Kylo has yet another traumatic waiting in the hospital experience, Leia had/has Mental Health Issues (referenced), Nail Polish, and makes foolish decisions while drunk, basically Snoke gets into a philosophical debate, gratuitous references to earth culture and even memes, ingesting non-edible substances, inspired by the Monk finale, mind they're Mostly temporary decisions, ok to podfic, or being obliged by circumstances to do so, shoutout to Heaviside and a div grad curl manicure he inspired, using nail polish to put philosophical references on one's hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22127302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: a preposterous story-explanation related in a hospital, that still does little to nothing to lighten the mood.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Snoke, Phasma & Kylo Ren, Phasma & Snoke (Star Wars)





	heavy metal threat assessment

"I don't quite understand, I don't--" Kylo Ren is talking to himself under his breath, like it's going to help to rehearse the words he's going to have to express, or like the crap coffee machine or the "Patients Ask Before Opening" refrigerator would have an explanation for what he doesn't understand.

All he knows at the moment is that Snoke is under police guard in the hospital and the man's reassuring but demanding voice is conspicuously absent from his head. He doesn't know quite what could take Snoke from him; as physically decrepit as the man seems, he's always also appeared to survive anything. 

Then again, it was kind of like that with Mom. It was a peaceful year then and things were going well and some committee head or something--one of a bunch of women Kylo (Ben then) saw meeting at the Senate Café every week--insisted Leia Organa take some time off, get some rest. And then suddenly something went very wrong and she was at the hospital and Ben was too young to go in (they would have let him on Alderaan, said one of the aides who were almost always named Antilles, and it stung because he wasn't Ben Organa either, because the planet was gone ...or something, but he couldn't be a Skywalker either, so he was stuck being the only name-sharing family member of an orphaned Corellian lowlife. That wasn't fair to his father, but Ben felt acutely that 'Solo' labeled him linked to ignoble sins, whether Han was actually nice enough or not.) and nobody would tell him what was going on, and Mom didn't act like Mom...

Anyway, anyway, he hadn't understood with Mom, and there was this thing about planetary police and he didn't know how to deal with any of this, would have given up anything--name, birthright, half an empire, to have Snoke explaining calmly to him what to do.

"He's got the words 'Mean Gold' on his hands," says one police officer to the other and not to Kylo, and if they're referring to Snoke, Kylo can tell them he most certainly doesn't. Unless he'd decided to get knuckle tattoos on a whim...which only reminded him of Mom deciding shortly after that that they were going to stay at this seaside town for two months and not eat any grains or beans when Ben's dietary staples of the time had been bread and bean-spread. Thankfully the diet hadn't seriously lasted more than a week, but the upheaval was the thing that bugged him. What might Snoke have him do if he'd suddenly got all impulsive?

"Are you okay?" It's Phasma, which is weird--why's she here, and why in kyber crystals does her manicure say "LOSS PANG"? When did Phasma start getting manicures? Why did that L look like Snoke's writing?

"You know I think it's actually loss.jpg," he blurts. Because he doesn't want to admit that he might not be okay, that he might need to lean on Phasma to get through this, because Dad was never _there_ for it (because Mom sent him away), and Chewie seemed disappointed in him for needing help, and it wasn't proper Jedi behavior to ask Uncle Luke and there wasn't anyone else--until there was Snoke, conveniently in his head--with whom he could admit to weakness.

"Oh. That." He looks up and notices that Phasma's completely out of uniform and looks a little concerned. But she crosses her arms at the wrist, and he reads "PANGLOSS", still in Snoke's handwriting, in black letters over a glossy dark winey purple-red. "I guess that was actually about Sno-- Supreme Leader."

"What do you mean? He's in the hospital. Here, I mean," and Kylo earnestly isn't sure that those statements aren't questions.

Phasma tilts her head. "It's...a long story. Why? Is he okay?" 

"I don't know!" he grouses, ignoring how rude this probably is towards Phasma.

She grimaces for the merest second but turns and addresses a nurse-droid. "You there, can you tell us how Supreme Leader Snoke is doing?"

"His condition is stable, but there are still tests to be run," says the bot, in the most basic of synthesized voices.

"See, Ren, I can tell you about last night while you worry, since they don't seem to want to let us in," she offers, and he nods, reluctantly.

Kylo huffs but decided that listening to the whole story will probably at least be less distressing than letting his worries run roughshod all over him. He indicates the bench nearby wordlessly, and Phasma across the invitation.

"So, uh, my grandmother died a few years back," (Kylo has never had any grandparents), "and my dad and I started a family tradition of memorializing her on her birthday each year, by eating some of our family's favorite foods and wearing her favorite color of nail polish--" (what had this to do with Snoke, again?!) "--which is why Snoke knew I had any kind of knowledge of nail polish because he bumped into me in the canteen that day last month while I was washing my hands." Phasma seems to examine her nails. "I mean, that and he was probably working from gendered assumptions, eh? You're alright, Kylo, but Supreme Leader kinda has that 'if they are not a man they are almost aliens' vibe.

"And anyway, when he tried to summon me with this obscure info--and it _was_ me 'cause he indicated so--he gave FN-2718 a spot of panic. The kid thought he was being targeted for having the creativity to amuse some kids at that orphanage last week when we raided the island looking for rebels. Because he asked for anyone who had used nail polish! You just don't do that!" Kylo is a little confused about where she's going with this; despite seeing Snoke's penmanship in her nail art, he had not supposed it had any connection with the Supreme Leader's hospitalization. Still he nods at the brief pause, both having nothing to say and expecting Phasma wasn't looking for him to say anything.

"Er, yeah. He thought we could bond, I guess? Supreme Leader and I, not you and me; I think it's all because he noticed we get along alright and he thought you needed like, a pal, but boy, he should NOT be in charge of recruitment. He assumed that just because I _presumably_ have ovaries that we needed to bond over like, nail polish--although I guess that's not the worst option, and I tried to alter the tone of things by opting for a more sort of...macho drink.

"Buut that made him get drunk faster which probably caused this mess." Phasma pauses and not just rhetorically; she also raises her hands in a gesture of her futility.

"What--what were you drinking?" Kylo supplies, more because it seems like the done thing. 

She frowns. "Whiskey. But that wasn't the only problem, Kylo. I think he might have been dehydrated. Or maybe he has a binge drinking problem, because he just kept drinking a lot. Yeah, I was _drunk_, but I was just normal drunk and the stupidest thing I did was tell him his bathrobe reminded me of Bill Cipher."

"His...bathrobe. Do you mean the golden one?" It's a cringing tone; Kylo doesn't really know who Bill Cipher is, but calling Snoke's typical wear a bathrobe is...probably more disrespectful than the Supreme Leader will tolerate.

"I mean. It wasn't a bathrobe, but I got my vocabulary confused last night and honestly that's less insulting than asking a man about why he's wearing a triangle pattern onesie, with dead possum slippers."

Kylo, though he might not be a paragon of fashion, has never understood Snoke's wardrobe against every other person's dress sense he had ever encountered. "Please tell me you don't mean that literally."

"They weren't... _made_ of dead possum. But anymore you can get joke slippers anywhere on the holonet, so maybe he thought they weren't that out there? I don't know.

"Anyway, he asked me about what type of book I liked to read, and okay, I kind of tried to impress him, too, because I said 'The Art of War' and I don't know whether he was already kind of drunk or what but he went off on a so far as I could tell irrelevant rant about Nietzsche having a particularly stupid mustache. Only then did he settle into his apparent favorite topic, Aristotle's advice for living."

Kylo stared at the mostly dated but attempting-to-be-cheery floor tiles and reiterated questioningly "You're saying he summoned you about nail polish but then he got drunk and talked about philosophy?"

"I did bring up the topic, Ren. I told him I didn't necessarily like Aristotle--something, I don't remember the full details, and then he got into this big lecture, during which he insisted I start painting both our nails, and he decided without my saying much of anything that I was 'optimistic to the point of foolishness'--ridiculously off base, and started calling me Pangloss, at which point he made me let him write that on my freshly polished nails." She wiggled them. "But also I had to give _him_ the topic he kept going on and on about--he was so excited about 'Pangloss' and 'Gold Mean' being eight letters each--on his nails."

Kylo thinks for a moment, in his panic-congealed brain, and supposes that's probably why Snoke had been accused of bearing the words "Mean Gold". And he'd thought it was impulsive knuckle tattoos!

"But he also did this ridiculous thing where he thought the way manicures should be read was with fingers curled up almost into a fist, and that's how they both look a lot like the two parts are reversed, when our palms are just normally pronate. Which is not the worst thing he did last night, either."

"How bad was it?" Kylo mutters grimly.

Phasma looks at him with confusion. "Please?" 

"How. bad. was. it?" he repeats, grinding out each word carefully.

"I mean, we went to Walmarts, which was naturally a bad decision in the first place at that point."

"Naturally," Kylo agrees, almost automatically. 

She sideeyes him. "Because we were drunk. I'm not that much of a snob. Although I'm pretty sure we had the base shuttle drive us, in our defense."

"What did he do?" Kylo is already anticipating being kind of devastated by a tale of incredible violence.

"He found this broken lava lamp on clearance and--Kylo, _really_, he tried to chug it."

"He tried to chug a lava lamp," he repeats with faint horror. "How is that a moderate move?"

"I don't know! But then this cute girl had to help me find the Poison Control number except that they told us to go ahead and call an ambulance. And that's how he ended up here."

Phasma doesn't seem to have more to add, but Kylo quickly looks up lava lamps, wondering if he could learn anything more about Snoke's symptoms. But--"Phasma, it says here that lava lamps are non-toxic."

She shrugs. "Well, regardless, he was in a bad way when he left walmarts. Maybe he ingested something else? I guess he could have taken something while we were drinking and arguing philosophers."

"Why is it that he behaved so wildly with _you_?" Kylo wonders aloud. "He's absolutely never been that way around me." And it's not just Snoke; it was always like there was a too-solemn air around Ben Solo, such that adults (his father, Chewbacca, Uncle Luke, the rare times he saw Lando Calrissian, Mom and her political acquaintances...) never quite...unbent around him, treating him as if he couldn't stand to joke too much, as if, perhaps, his laughter might be dangerous. At least Phasma isn't like that with him, generally, even if she is usually a fairly serious person.

Phasma exhales so vehemently that she practically "blows a raspberry". "I dunno. It seemed to me like maybe he's funny about certain topics and he thinks the gravity of your, you know, Force, demands an unbending attitude." (His face sours as quickly as winddriven clouds moving across a summer sky. Is that it? Would Vader, Grandfather, have been any better about it?) "But like, that, and also this business with him ending up in the hospital--they call it gallows humor--it is serious as hell but it can be pretty hilarious, you know?"

Despite his resentment, maybe she's right, because the idea of laughing about the Force scares him a little. So he doesn't have an answer in words and yet he gives her a small, uneasy smile.

**Author's Note:**

> _"No one's laughing at God on the day they realize/that the last sight they'll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes.[...]_ no one's laughing at God, we're all laughing with God" - "Laughing With", Regina Spektor
> 
> which I decided is neither a good title nor subtitle and actually is pretty crypticlly referenced here but... I do recommend trying to find something to laugh about in the sad times.
> 
> the title this does have was its provisional title and derives from considerations like, "how threatening IS 'MEAN GOLD' as a message?" and "could heavy metal poisoning/contamination be involved here?"
> 
> anyway this itself Is a weird combination of serious and oh so silly.


End file.
